Daily Archives: 11 July 2017

Time to lose your illusions on North Korea, War on the Rocks
To its credit, the Trump administration seems to have finally abandoned the notion that Beijing will pressure Pyongyang into denuclearization. China’s trade with North Korea in the first quarter this year went up rather than down, and even its highly-touted suspension of coal imports proved less than meets the eye. Expect Beijing in coming days to embrace U.S. criticism of North Korea and possibly even formal responses, such as U.N. sanctions, that leave the underlying realities unchanged. China simply will not apply the kind of severe economic pressure to North Korea that might compel significant de-nuclearization or the dismantling of its missile programs.

China-Russia alignment on North Korea raises eyebrows, The Hill Times
In a coordinated response to the launch, Beijing and Moscow issued a joint statement on Tuesday calling for a mutual freeze on Pyongyang’s nuclear program and U.S.-South Korean military maneuvers in the region. Chinese President Xi Jinping told Russian media that relations between the two countries were currently in their “best time in history” and that China and Russia were one another’s “most trustworthy strategic partners.”

Spartan – A contender for the Type 31 Frigate?, UK Defence Journal
Ensuring that the design remains attractive to the global export market will bring economic advantages to the Royal Navy through efficiencies of scale, and will result in wider benefits to UK plc.

House Appropriators Give SecDef Blank Check For $28.6B, Breaking Defense
“The secretary and the Joint Staff are expected to deliver a new defense strategy in September, a much-needed update to the last review conducted in 2014,” Granger said. “The Defense Restoration Fund will enable the Secretary to make necessary investments resulting from that review now, instead of having to wait until 2019.”

Security and Defence articles worth reading, with a diversity of views.